After the Obama administration “switched sides” in the terror war and lawlessly heeded the United Nations’ demand for an international war against former U.S. ally Moammar Gadhafi, Libya was supposed to be “liberated.” Instead, the nation began to collapse as various tribes, factions, and al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militias backed by Obama, NATO, and the UN battled each other in competing bids to rule over the ruins. The U.S. ambassador and several other Americans were ultimately killed in Benghazi amid the aftermath, too.
Now, the supposedly “liberated” country is on the verge of yet another civil war — just as this magazine and other non-establishment voices predicted years ago. In recent weeks, gun battles between various factions have been intensifying, prompting the Obama administration to increase the presence of U.S. forces in the region in case the chaos spirals out of control and Americans need to be evacuated. That appears to be a very likely scenario as the new regime, widely viewed as illegitimate, struggles to maintain even the semblance of a grip on power in the face of another growing rebellion.
The most dramatic recent turn of events involved the self-styled “Libyan National Army” invading Parliament this week. On Monday, a commander in the military police loyal to the uprising announced that the embattled legislative body was being “suspended.” A new 60-member “constituent assembly” is supposed to take its place, according to uprising leaders. “We announce to the world that the country can’t be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism,” Gen. Mokhtar Farnana announced on television on behalf of the rebel leaders.
The latest rebellion is being led by renegade general Khalifa Hifter, a former leader in Gadhafi’s military before helping lead an effort to oust the ruthless late dictator. He claims that the new regime is supporting terrorism and extremism, and plans to wage war on the Islamist “government” and its heavily armed militia supporters that are running wild across Libya. While the plan has been in the works for months, it burst into public view last week.
Authorities said at least two people were killed in the raid on Parliament, and more than 50 wounded. In the few days, estimates suggest about 100 people have died in fresh clashes. Fierce gun battles between the various factions have intensified, leaving hundreds more wounded.
Following the militant raid on the Parliament in Tripoli, a body that many Libyans consider a farce anyway, the Islamist speaker of the suspended body called on Muslims across Libya to take up arms and wage war on the opposition. Islamist militia chiefs reportedly heeded the call and are now pouring into the capital to protect what remains of the dubious national regime.
While fighting in the capital has been fierce, Benghazi has again seen the most extreme violence so far. According to media accounts, some 75 people were killed in clashes there last week between the “Libyan National Army” and Islamist militias. Many more were wounded as Hifter led what was described as an air and land assault against Islamic extremists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood-linked regime in Tripoli. The anti-Islamist campaign, being marketed as a “war on terror,” is being dubbed “Operation Dignity.”
With his forces composed of rebel Libyan military officers and non-Islamist militias, Hifter vowed to continue fighting until the nation and its ruling class was “purged” of Islamic extremists. Of course, the current Islamist regime, which came to power with massive military and financial support from the Obama administration, is less than pleased about the developments. In response to the uprising, officials announced new “elections” — the last one, dominated by violence, was widely viewed as a cruel joke — and sought talks with the opposition.
“The government condemns the expression of political opinion through the use of armed force,” Libyan “Justice Minister” Salah al-Marghani said in a statement after the uprising raided Parliament and announced its suspension. “It calls for an immediate end of the use [of] the military arsenal … and calls on all sides to resort to dialogue and reconciliation.”
Hifter, though, vowed to continue fighting, essentially ruling out negotiations. “We see that confrontation is the solution,” the ex-general told the Washington Post in an interview from his forces’ headquarters in Benghazi. “I do not think talks will work with them…. The [Parliament known as the General National Council] GNC has been rejected by the people, and its legitimacy has ended. Operation Dignity is multiple battles; it’s not just one battle.”
According to analysts, various armed factions and rulers are now in the process of choosing sides in what could be a prelude to an even broader, full-scale civil war between Islamists and those loyal to Hifter. The latest rebel leader also claims his rebellion is not backed by foreign powers, though that remains uncertain. (Last year the Obama administration announced more military support for the Islamists,) Ali Zeidan, the former “prime minister” who was kidnapped by gunmen last year, has sided with the uprising. So have many of the more secular militia bosses and numerous other prominent figures.
Islamist forces and much of the national government, on the other hand, have sided with the pro-Islamism side. Al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups backed by Obama during the last war, for example, are claiming the uprising is really a “War on Islam” and so must be opposed. In response to the increasingly brazen and successful assaults led by Hifter’s men, the Libyan regime’s Army chief also ordered Islamist militias deployed in Tripoli to keep the rebellion at bay.
Of course, the Islamist regime in Tripoli is essentially a national government in name only. Since the unconstitutional, UN-approved regime change operation led by Obama, Libya has seen non-stop fighting and brutality. The chaos and lawlessness left in the wake of Obama’s wildly unconstitutional and clearly unwise military misadventure was so out of control that the American ambassador to Libya was killed by Islamist militias. The killings occurred amid a massive assault on a shadowy U.S. compound that evidence suggests was being used by the administration to arm Islamic terror groups seeking regime change in Syria.
Still today, some three years after Obama helped overthrow and summarily execute the late Libyan tyrant and U.S. terror-war ally, the nation remains largely divided into small chunks of territory. Each little “fiefdom,” as they are being described, is ruled over by its own warlords, militia leader, tribal chief, or other self-styled ruler. Those local chieftains frequently clash among each other, too, with perpetually shifting alliances further muddying the picture. Numerous Gadhafi loyalists remain scattered across Libya as well.
Of course, all of this chaos was easily predictable — and in fact, was predicted by The New American magazine and countless other non-establishment voices. The establishment press, the UN, the Obama administration, and others, meanwhile, have been left entirely discredited after using deception and propaganda to justify an unconstitutional war. In essence, under the guise of “protecting” Libyans, the globalist establishment has turned Libya into a virtual terrorist state ruled by Islamist militias and terror. Tyranny still reigns supreme.
While the nation barrels full speed toward another brutal civil war, the Western establishment press has largely lost interest in Libya. Still, Americans should know what is going on. The fruits of U.S. government interventionism — death, destruction, terror, persecution, genocide, lawlessness, chaos, and more — are becoming plain to see. Instead of variously backing dictators and terrorist groups, and then turning against them, the U.S. government should obey the Constitution and heed the advice of the Founding Fathers rather than the “resolutions” approved by the dictator-dominated UN.
The alternative is now obvious as more blood runs in the streets across the latest nation to be “liberated” by the globalist establishment.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American magazine, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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